Chapter 14

Marlowe

I've never been so invested in anything in my life. I want out of these fucking woods, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Damn an innocent woman. Violate her. Trap her here.

I don't regret it in the least.

My gaze shifts to the fourth and final member of our coven, some woman with orange hair and a big mouth. Katelynn Poppy. It's a ridiculous name, but it suits her somehow. She's got some spunk, but it's clear that she likes a nice, hard fuck, too.

I feel the edge of my mouth curl, but I tell myself that I don't care. That the second woman I've ever slept with is somebody I don't know and don't like. Miriam was enough for me, but that's clearly over and done with.

She married Dennis? When I think of my best friend and my girlfriend getting together, tying the knot, and having kids, there's an itchiness under my skin that makes me violent. It's the fear of missing out, of knowing you've been left behind and forgotten.

" They come to the Witchwoods every year to throw a candlelight vigil for you." I breathe out hard through my nose, the sound trapped by the metal of the mask. There are air holes on the bottom and sides of it, but it's stuffy in here. I shouldn't do that.

My attention shifts to the woman again, to our Northwoods.

Part of me hates her because of the things she's said, of the truths she's told me that better not be lies. If I find out that any of her words were false, I won't care that we're in a coven together. I will walk away, and I won't look back.

I understand that nothing in my situation is her fault, but I can't help but hate her anyway. She was putty under my hands, and I loved every second of it. Loved fucking her in a way that I never loved fucking Miriam.

I adjust the wooden pole on my shoulder, careful not to spill any of the liquid inside the cauldron.

The woods are dark and speckled with luminescence. Animals watch us pass by without judgment. Other things, more discerning things study us with contempt or pity or bemusement. Faeries and demons and monsters, none of whom are a match for the Hag Wytch.

I shudder as I recall the memory of lying on my back, feeling my bow crack under her beak. If it'd been night, I'd have been dead. But the Hag's powers are diminished during the day, so much so that she usually doesn't bother to come out of her nest.

Maybe having a full coven at her Pit was too much of a temptation to resist?

Despite my dislike, I find my attention drawn to Kate again. As angry as I am with her, I'm pleased, too. She kept the corpse pumpkin, making this spell possible, this spell that I want more than I want to keep my own life. She saved that, too, and then ...

" You're broken and sad and angry." I feel my hatred curl in on itself when I think of her words. How dare this bitch pity me? She'll be back in time to pay her mortgage. She has no right to pity. All she should feel is gratitude that she's the final member of this coven.

The Witch's Tree is obvious even in the pitch-dark of the woods, its massive girth shaming the other trees. It stretches so far into the sky that even during the day, I can't find the top of it.

Tanner and I set the cauldron down carefully, helping Brooks drag it into place before the three of us heft it up and pour the liquid into the hole on the front of the trunk. Something grumbles with displeasure from inside, but I don't know enough about the mechanics of the tree to give a fuck what it is.

I don't care.

All I care about is leaving this place. Brooks swears that he's seen this spell work once before. Maybe it doesn't? Maybe he's lying? Maybe, when he saw four people perform this spell together, they went somewhere else, somewhere worse than this place?

But all we can do is try.

I have to try.

My parents should still be alive. My sisters. Miriam. Dennis.

It's not too late to reclaim some of what I left behind.

Brooks sets a fire at the base of the tree with a snap of his fingers, and we stand at the four corners. The trunk is too big for us to hold hands, but we put our arms out on either side of us, and we begin to dance.

There was no time tonight to teach North the steps, so she stumbles at first, and I feel my jaw clench. If she fucks this up, we'll have to gather all the spell ingredients again, start from scratch. It'll take weeks.

It's not her fault, Lo. I know that. I do. Doesn't matter.

I wish I could yell at her, snap at her, make her understand the severity of the situation, but our tongues are equally tied.

She's annoyingly beautiful in the firelight, her heavy breasts revealed when she spins, orange and black hair flying around her in a blur of color. Her nipples are pink-tipped and perfect. I want them between my teeth. I want her underneath me with her legs spread wide. I want her groaning my name and clawing at my back the way she did last night.

Each thought feels like a slap to the face, so I shred those feelings and let them simmer like rage. Brooks thinks he's obligated to North because we're in the same coven. Tanner just wants a partner, and he thinks fucking and falling for someone in his coven makes the most sense.

I just want out. I just want to go home.

Brooks begins our song, a humming that calls the power in these woods without drawing the Hag. It's an easy tune, and Kate picks up on it more quickly than she grasps the steps of the dance.

Together, we sing and spin, and the fire climbs higher.

The night edges forward.

What little time we have ticks past.

My skin is shiny with sweat, my cock rigid with the excitement of the spell, with the power. With Kate, her own skin soft and slick and pale. Big, full tits. Tucked little waist. Round hips. The mask, the flames, the necklace of bones she wears, it turns her into something wild. Her witch hat catches the light of the fire and casts ragged cone-like shadows on the trees behind us.

One of those shadows is wearing horns, a representation of Kate's cardinal direction. Wings for a West. Tails for an East. Antlers for a South. They have no problem replicating the dance, big and dark and stretched out as they spin with us.

Kate finally catches on, matching her steps to ours.

The flames turn a bluish-black, like a bruise. Whatever is inside of the tree groans like it's in pain. Brooks takes down his mask.

We all do the same, and when he passes over the potion vials, we drink together.

It tastes like fucking sin. Blood and sex and power. Shit.

We spit into the flames, and then Brooks speaks the first word of the spell. He speaks so quickly that it sounds like tongues. Fortunately, we don't have to repeat any of it. I only know what it says because I've read the book so many times.

" Into the womb of the world, we return. Out of the Witchwoods and back into Mother Earth. We have received a blessing that we refused, and into sin we crawl. Into sin, we are unborn. May Father Earth remake us upon our deaths. May we see the Witchwoods once our bodies have joined the dirt. Bless our unholy union with the gift of free travel."

His voice calls the Hag Wytch right to us. Tanner's crow calls out a warning, swooping low to alert us to the threat.

I can hear the Hag screeching in the woods, can hear the flap of her massive wings.

"Come here." Brooks grabs Kate by the wrist, shoving her hand into the hole on the tree. And then her other hand. The rest of her body. He pushes her into the hole and makes her crawl. When he turns to me, I know that I'm next.

I don't need help, digging my fingers into the hole and hauling myself through it. It's tight, like a birth canal made of wood and mud. There are small ferns in here, banana slugs, moths that flutter away from me as I squeeze through as fast as I can, struggling through the narrow space. My hat scrapes the walls but doesn't come off.

" I didn't fucking think I would die like this!" the Hag screams from behind me, the last words of her victims trapped inside her for eternity. I crawl faster harder, can feel Tanner right behind me.

When I end up with Kate's ass in my face, I put out a hand and I shove her as hard as I can. There's a resistance and a pressure, and then she's tumbling forward and I'm scrambling out after her. Tanner's bird follows with a cawing shriek, circling above us with frantic flaps of her wings.

I step on something—a metal dog bowl?—and then I hit my knees in the wet dirt. Kate is on her hands and knees, too, turning and falling on her ass as she lets out a gasp of surprise. I follow her gaze to see what she's looking at.

Tanner is forcing his massive body out of the hole, fingers digging into the bark, teeth gritted. He falls onto the ground in front of me, panting and rolling onto his back. He grabs onto the brim of his hat with a groan, tugging at it as his wolf ears twitch.

That's not what Kate is looking at, her gaze on the Witch's Tree.

It's just a stump.

The woods are thinned out, and the trunks are smaller. Nothing glows. Nothing looks back at us. The air feels different, smells different. I can hear a plane soaring above the canopy.

Home.

After twenty fucking years, I'm finally home .